Running Away
by d5dr4k3
Summary: There were regrets, there were mistakes. So he ran. But looking back, maybe it was time to stop running


A/N: **Fairy Tail is owned by Hiro Mashima, not me. Anyway at least try to enjoy this short story I made within 4 hours.**

* * *

If there was one thing he was, it was tired.

He shrugged the duffel bag that was falling off his shoulder, back hunched in exhaustion. He could almost feel his jet black mane pulling him down with every step, the small singlet that barely covered his large torso and sports pants also seemed to do a good job of burdening him even further, and almost couldn't bear to walk another pace, evidence as seen from his tired, red eyes that were devoid of all energy.

Tall buildings lined his left and right, people still walking hurriedly to their next destination even at 11 at night. Cars still lined the streets, the occasional car horn and curse word thrown at a inconsiderate driver not an uncommon happening in the streets of Manhattan.

He scratched the tattoo on his right shoulder, stretching his back in the process, hoping to relieve it of the ache that had built up on the way back to his apartment. Shifting his duffel bag for the fifth time in one minute, he attempted to find a way to carry the bag that didn't make it feel like a ship's anchor was weighing him down.

He was tired in all sense of the god-forsaken word. His eyes hurt from staring at computer screens too long. His brain still had remnants of the throbbing headache from dealing with unreasonable customers earlier in the day, and he didn't think he could muster up enough strength to throw another punch, be it at the damn Salamander or not. He wasn't a patient person, but oh hell, today he would be willing to wait as long as he had to for another refreshing cup of capuccino.

He flexed his studded forearm, liking the way the steel studs resisted the stretching of the skin, and pulled his muscles along with them.

Then, his face turned to a scowl as he felt yet another cramp build up in his calf. His blood-red eyes narrowed in both pain and annoyance, the studs lining his nose and chin scrunching up along with the skin between his eyes.

Biting back a groan, he knelt on the ground, hurriedly dropping his duffel bag to free his hands and massage his cramped calf, trying his best to place himself to the side of the busy street, so as to relieve the pain without being a hindrance to any unpleasant human beings who may have found his action inconsiderate.

Suddenly a screen in his pocket lit up, followed shortly after by a violent buzzing. He made no attempt to muffle the cry of annoyance that came, and tried to ignore the vibrating device until after he managed to relieve his cramp.

His hands slowly squeezed and stretched the tense muscle, and the pain slowly evaporated. He extended his leg, stretching the muscle once more, before he finally managed to stand up on his two feet. He swept up his duffel bag, and pulled the phone out of his pocket with a vengeance, whispering curses beneath his breath as it got caught by loose threads on its way out. Freeing his phone, he took a look at the screen.

And his breath caught in his throat.

* * *

The person on the other side of the line paced the floor of her bedroom impatiently, getting more and more annoyed of the incessant ringing in her ear with each passing second.

She hoped she hadn't gotten him at a bad time, but if her math was correct, he had just ended work where he was, and was probably already on the way back to his lodgings. He should pick up, but he wasn't.

She hadn't heard from him for months after their… incident.

She knew he needed time, and she gave it to him freely. She knew he needed space, and she gave him all he needed. Yet what she gave in spades, he responded with nothing. Literally, she had woken up to absolutely nothing, no warmth of his body hugging her small frame, no trace of his clothes that were strewn all over her bedroom floor the night prior, no note as to where he went, no clues as to where he was, nothing.

She had never felt more vulnerable in her life.

She cried herself to sleep for a few nights after, with the false hope that he would come back to her and pull her into his strong arms, that she would breathe in his musky scent, and feel his cool studs against his warm skin, all while professing his undying love for her, and how sorry he was for leaving her alone that morning.

No, every morning after, she would wake up to a smashing hangover and a crusty feeling around her eyes, her vibrant blue hair a walking bird's nest, tear stains lining her cheeks.

She would probably find a flask or two of Jack Daniel's thrown carelessly around where she was sleeping as well.

Those times were probably the most she ever spent on alcohol.

Her friends had tried to comfort her, guys with how much they should beat him up when he DID come back, girls with a movie and ice-cream.

They didn't help, the guys just reminded her of how much he liked to pick fights, and the girls didn't like anything other than sappy romance, even when going to get ice-cream, she would find herself reaching towards the tub of Belgian Chocolate that was always in the freezer to hand to him, before realising that he was gone.

Then one day she got a message from a friend abroad.

 _I saw a studded guy with long black hair and red eyes on the train to work, did you know Gajeel was in Manhattan?_

She had taken it up upon herself to call him. She had finally found out his whereabouts, so she wasn't gonna give up on contacting him so easily, she had questions to be answered.

She called him daily, but every time, it ended up with voicemail and a beep.

Yet she didn't give up.

She left countless messages.

 _Hi, How are you?_

 _H-How's life?_

 _Why?_

 _I miss you…_

She had tried everything, but he didn't respond, not once. Sometimes, instead of letting the call run out, he would just straight out decline her call, and each time he did, it broke her heart yet again.

She then convinced herself that he needed time, to think, to evaluate, to get used to it, to do SOMETHING, and he would come back. She thought he was scared, that he didn't know what to do, maybe a bit confused, that he needed to go somewhere to clear his mind before he returned.

So she waited

And she waited

And waited

Until she gave up on staring at a lifeless black screen that was never gonna light up with his name on it.

She tried to forget about him, using work as a distraction from him. But she would always see his hair flick round the corner, hear his non-committal grunts from time to time. This was one month after.

Three months after, and she thought she forgot about him. She started hanging out with her friends again, started her daily regime again, even went out on a few dates with guys she thought she liked. None of them were him, though, but she really didn't mind, because she felt free, free of him.

But life has a way of throwing you a curveball that sends you back down the same road you just finished.

This came recently, when she had read in the papers about a successful gym in the south of Manhattan, which boasted a boxing ring, multiple state-of-the-art machines, and a very large swimming complex. But that wasn't what caught her attention.

" _Staff member and part-time trainer of Knockout, Gajeel Redfox said '…'"_

She went straight to the phone.

* * *

And that brings us to the here and now.

Her pacing non-stop, him staring wide-eyed at the buzzing phone.

And this continued.

And went on…

And on.

Then the phone stopped buzzing, and on the other line, she stopped pacing. He stared at the now black screen, holding mixed emotions. He was afraid, of the consequences of letting the phone run out. He was happy, even in the smallest way, that she hadn't forgetten him. He didn't understand the meaning of her calling, and for some odd reason wanted to know why, but most of all he felt confused.

Confused as to why she had called in the first place.

He started his walk back again, aching shoulders and cramping calves completely forgotten.

She hadn't for so long, he thought she had decided to forget that _they_ had ever happened, that she had forgotten _his_ mistake, no matter how clearly _he_ would remember it.

He was intoxicated that night, she was too. Not to the point of being unconscious of one's own actions, but to the point of having lost a sliver of self control, and that was all that was needed for them to go all the way. Her soft moans coaxing his ears as his fingers trailed up her bare thigh, clothing coming off, layer by layer, tangled limbs and bodies colliding, the room warming up…

He didn't wanna remember it.

But as usual, his fickle mind wandered off again, bringing back the memories of their shared past.

A whole year before it happened, she was a bookworm with a counter job at a small library in the middle of Magnolia, manning a counter almost as tall as her, reading horror novels with her cute red glasses perched on her tiny nose bridge.

He, on the other hand, was a hooligan with a liking for banging the average whore in public places. Her library was just another one of those places.

Levy was having a normal day before she saw a specific studded delinquent waltz right in through the front door holding a woman, wearing a skirt far too short to cover anything apart from private parts and a crop top with the same amount of coverage.

In the middle of the day.

She wasn't in any place to tell them to leave, since the library was supposed to be a place for all, but she changed her mind when she started hearing giggles and soft moans coming from the bookshelf furthest from the counter.

Needless to say, she had them removed from the library, but not without slamming him over the head with a conveniently placed hardcover copy of "The Hobbit" for calling her a shrimp.

She was the first person to ever hit him so daringly. He was scary, to say the least. The type that looked like he could snap your spine in half like a twig, with bulging muscles and constantly narrowed crimson eyes and metal studs lining his body just to add to the intimidation factor. His life was one of alcohol and busty women, time in the gym, then go to the strip club, mugged a guy if he didn't have enough money for a woman for the night. Wake up, pay the woman, leave, never see her again. Rinse and repeat.

She broke that cycle. Afterwards, he found himself coming back day after day, with or without a woman. He found entertainment in teasing the short bluenette, watching her cheeks puff up and how a light blush dusted them just before she spouted out a retort, the little ways her nose twitched like a puppy's whenever she read a book, how the red reading glasses made her look so much cuter than he imagined, how her yellowish-brown eyes would glass over whenever it came to an emotional part of the story... He could go on for days and still be unable to complete this list of things he noticed, all while spending time in the library.

He had grown fond of the pint-sized librarian, no matter how much he refused to admit it himself, but he was still inexperienced at dealing with his emotions. He had never opened himself up to anyone before, much less reveal his genuine emotions, only ever understanding that one had to be strong to survive, and even that had been proven wrong by the midget.

She offered him a job at the library, after it came up in a casual conversation that he mugged people for a living, which she responded to with a look of horror and severe dislike for his occupation. It was an offer that he took up a couple of months later.

He didn't like the library at first, but he came to appreciate its charm and the solace it gave from the world around him. She introduced reading to him by, much to his disapproval, reading them to him aloud. He felt like a toddler listening to its mother reading bedtime stories at first, disliking the feeling, but he fell victim to her hypnotic voice and soothing words. Even though he loathed admitting that he wanted to listen to her read stories to him, it was a fact that he had slowly come to like it.

It was during this time that their bond grew stronger, from the hours they spend reading together side by side, him and his eroticas and her with her horror, the times they were called to pick up new batches of donated books, and how he would always take the biggest boxes, leaving her with the small handfuls of books left to carry.

He figured that, even though he wasn't good at expressing emotions through words, he would do through his actions.

Yet somehow he managed to take that part a little too far.

* * *

Back in today, he grimaced at the mistake that he had carelessly made all those months ago, one which had caused both him and her multitudes of emotional agony, but he was scared. Afraid of the consequences his actions could bring, what he had done.

He had never opened up to anyone before on anything internal, and doing so was terrifying for him. He needed time to think with himself, alone, without her.

Then he got comfortable with his new life, shifting to a new city, starting afresh in a new community, being able to write his story all over again, but he didn't ever want to erase her from the previous chapter, and no matter how much he wanted to take those old pages and rip them to shreds, he couldn't take away the memory of her. He wanted to return to her, but simultaneously felt repelled away. He didn't know how to say sorry, despite knowing full well his wrongdoing.

So he stayed on, and a few weeks later he got a call from her.

He didn't pick up.

He was scared, confused still, not knowing what to say or how to say it, so he let it ring.

She kept calling, making it a daily affair. He listened to all her voicemails, keeping them in his mailbox just so he could hear her again. He heard the pain in her voice, the way her voice cracked at times, and he could feel his heart cracking along with her.

Never had he ever felt so deeply for a person, so he was afraid of how she would react when he did pick up the phone.

He knew she wouldn't scream, she was too gentle for her own good. He knew she wouldn't brush it off, she had made it evident that the feeling was mutual, and deep.

What he was afraid of was her crying. He had never handled someone crying to him before, especially not due to emotional pain. He didn't want the only person he cared about so much reduced to a vulnerable mess of tears and snot and blood-shot eyes.

So he never picked up, and eventually she stopped calling altogether.

He thought that she had finally given up on him, that she had learned to move on, so he attempted to do so too.

So when she called, he didn't pick up.

 _U-um, hi Gajeel, how are you? I-I saw an article with you in the paper, so I called, wanted to figure out.. um.. how you were, I guess._

A long pause ensued. Static silence blared as loudly as the car horns on a busy

Wednesday afternoon.

 _Please call back… I-I miss you, and…_

The following three words snapped the last strings holding his broken and battered heart together.

 _I love you._

She croaked them out, voice cracking in several places as she said those three words.

At least he was finally back at his apartment, turning the lock already, otherwise he would be a sobbing mess of black hair in the middle of the street. She was the last straw, and he snapped.

It was then that he finally realised something.

He was a fucking coward.

* * *

She had just ended the call, thumb hovering over the place where the button previously was, staring at the call log of her phone.

She said it. She finally said it.

But somehow, that seemed too painful to be healthy.

Her eyes were brimming with tears, body shaking as sobs wracked her small form. She chucked her phone into a pillow, shrinking further into the seat she occupied, and buried her face in her hands.

She had a flash of hope that he would call back, but dismissed it, remembering all the times she had tried before.

What made this time so special? The fact that she said "I love you"? Psh.

She ridiculed herself for thinking something so juvenile.

Tears leaked through her fingers and she could feel moisture all over her palms.

"Foolish girl, he'll never call back" she chastised herself.

Then her phone rang.

He was a coward who didn't know how to face up his mistakes. Who was he to call others weak when he himself couldn't even solve the issues that he created?

He felt like a fool. He had ran away in hopes of making everything better. He thought her could out-run his mistakes, everytime it presented itself, he swept it under the carpet away from his life yet again.

He had started a friendship, a real one, where each cares for the other. He had kept the same relationship for a whole year, and once she showed her genuine feelings for him, and was willing to give him everything she had, he had refused to let her in, to open up to her, afraid of her hurting him, despite her promises to never do harm unto him regardless which way.

He was afraid of himself, and unable to accept others into his life because of such. He felt like such an idiot.

His fingers ghosted over her name.

 _Levy McGarden._

He was done running away.

* * *

A/N: **Aaaaaaand HOW WAS THAT? Was it good? Was it bad? I wanna hear! Reviews please! I know it doesn't really feel very emotionally heavy, but I started writing and couldn't stop, so this is the product! Hope i didn't kill your eyeballs XD. Anyway, until the next one, CYA!**


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